


Kisses and Smiles and Sweet Laughter

by sungazer_117



Series: A Kiss for Every Occasion [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Betrayal, Cute Kids, Fluff, Gen, Meddling Kids, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26825971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungazer_117/pseuds/sungazer_117
Summary: The Chief of Staff has a soft side that not many people get to see.
Series: A Kiss for Every Occasion [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932424
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Kisses and Smiles and Sweet Laughter

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own One Piece. Credit goes to the creator Eiichiro Oda.

“Koala, report,” Sabo asked, taking in their surroundings while his partner gave him the official, if summarized, rundown of everything that had taken place since the Revolutionaries had arrived on the island. They had successfully helped the local insurgents gather the last of the weapons and supplies they needed to make an attempt at toppling their corrupt government, the only question was when and how they would attack. Koala and Hack had been left to coordinate last minute munitions drop offs and distribution of emergency first aid packs. He himself had just finished cleaning up the Marines that were deployed to stop the coup once the Navy caught wind of the revolt. His job was to make sure their attempt was a good one.

“We’re clear to mobilize whenever, Sabo-kun. We haven’t found a straight shot into the fort that doesn’t involve just busting through the front, but everyone of fighting age has been armed and is ready to fight regardless,” she finished. Sabo’s brow furrowed when he remembered that their temporary headquarters was established in an old orphanage.

“Aren’t there supposed to be kids in orphanages? They’ll need a place to lay low until the fighting is over,” he thought aloud. Koala was mildly surprised to hear that her Commanding Officer’s first concern was over a handful of children. As immoral as it sounded, there were bigger things at stake than the immediate safety of a few street urchins.

“They’re wandering about outside at the moment. We’ll keep them in the basement until the coup is over just in case some of the town gets destroyed. There’s a hidden door leading down there so as long as it’s covered, they should be safe. Those rugrats have built tunnels all underneath the village from in there, so I have no doubt they’ll be able to escape if something happens. The men who checked them out said there’s none we can use.” Sabo nodded, willing to agree to the plan.

“You look tired,” Koala noted, fingers brushing gently against his shoulder. He sighed quietly, offering her an easy grin. The floors above them were flooded with battle plans, infiltration strategies, weapons, food, medicine and soldiers gathered from every starved corner of the island. He didn’t have time to think about resting. Before they could discuss anything else, a group of children slammed open the front doors of their operation and tore about inside.

“Hey! Who let you in here?!” Koala yelled, nearly falling on her butt when one of the brats zipped between her legs. Sabo helped her regain her footing before sticking two fingers in his mouth and whistling sharply. The kids all ground to a halt, some frozen in place with pilfered food clenched tightly in their grubby hands. They looked up at the tall blond in a tophat when he squatted to be closer to eye level with them. He noticed that none of the orphans were older than twelve or thirteen, and his eyes landed on a baby that one of the older girls was holding. The little boy couldn’t have been older than a year and was swaddled in a dirty, poorly patched blanket. As it was, he was fussing and gearing up to cry, sensing the abrupt stillness of the air around them.

“Give him to me,” Sabo demanded rather than asked, seeing the frantic look on the face of the girl holding him. She backed up at first, unwilling to doom her littlest brother, but something inside of her gave in when Sabo’s face mellowed into a soft smile. Right as the boy passed between them, he sucked in a big breath, ready to test the full capacity of his developing lungs. Sabo waited until the moment he screamed, patting his gloved hand softly over the baby’s mouth so his scream wobbled in and out of pitch. The baby blinked in surprise and opened his mouth to scream again, only to hear the same wobbly noise. He cracked a smile and giggled at the sound of it, easily forgetting the reason he was upset in the first place.

Sabo laughed alongside the baby, encouraging the kids who were gaping at him to eat what their sticky fingers had already lifted from the revolutionaries’ stockpiles. “Go ahead, I’ll watch him for a few minutes,” he reassured them, taking a seat on an old crate with the baby. He saw their tired faces and sagging shoulders even though his own looked the same. The kids brightened up, crowding around Sabo and the baby boy, completely ignoring the fact that Koala had been standing next to him in light of shoving her away to make room. She backed away from the crowd but didn’t leave, genuinely surprised to see Sabo in such a tender state.

“If he tries to cry just wave your hand over his mouth or get him to make a funny sound that will distract him,” he explained to the kids, spreading the old blanket over his lap and bouncing the baby on one of his knees, holding him upright by his ribs. The kids chattered amongst themselves and with Sabo, asking him for tips on how to take care of the baby while he fed him some mashed up bananas. When the Chief was done, he scooped the boy up and laid him against his shoulder, rubbing his back gently until a few soft burps escaped him.

“Or if you need to tire him out, you can get him real excited by kissing his face and his tummy,” he added, handing the empty bowl to one of the boys plastered at his side while scooping up the squirmy brat and lifting his shirt high enough to expose a round little belly. Sabo made loud kissy noises as he pressed his lips to the baby’s soft flesh, scattering kisses everywhere he could reach while the baby squealed with laughter, wiggling fruitlessly. All the movement quickly drained his energy and before long he was sound asleep in Sabo’s lap, much to the awe of his immediate audience and all of the Revolutionaries who had wandered in and stopped to watch the spectacle.

Eventually, the baby was passed back to the girl who had initially been carrying him. Sabo stood, dusting himself off and approaching Koala while fighting to keep a satisfied smile off his face.

“I didn’t know you were so good with kids, Sabo-kun,” she said to him, smiling herself. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, chuckling.

“They can be loud, squirmy menaces, but for the most part they’re innocent, uncorrupted. Children learn to be prejudiced and who to hate from a very young age, and they maintain those prejudices for the rest of their lives,” he explained to her. Koala crossed her arms over her chest.

“So you’re ensuring that you’re not someone for them to despise later on in life? Or is there some other reason you’re buttering them up?” she guessed. Sabo scoffed at the accusation, though he was unsure himself of why he was so fond of children. Perhaps they reminded him of Luffy. His last real memories of his brother had been nearly a decade ago. From what he had seen in the newspapers, Luffy had grown strong enough to start pursuing his dream, fighting off anyone who came to stop him, but when Sabo thought of his precious baby brother though, he thought of the weakling crybaby that could never beat him or Ace.

“I’m not trying to wheedle anything out of them, Koala. There’s no telling if they’ll still like me tomorrow or the next day, no matter what I do or don’t do. A lot can happen to change a person in the time you’re not around to be with them. For now, however, I would rather these children know kindness, even if I can only offer them so much of it,” he admitted. Koala didn’t know how to respond to the depth of his thoughts, but luckily for her, she didn’t have to. The kids came back messy from their lunch and Sabo ordered them into the bathrooms to get cleaned up as he mumbled something about spreading dirt through the perfectly clean air.

“Big bro!” the eldest of the urchins called to him a few minutes later, walking up with the baby still sleeping and the rest of their freshly-scrubbed gang crowding around behind her. Her face was set with certainty about something, matched by the rest of the children. “You’re a good guy! We don’t understand everything that’s going on, but we know you’re after all the rotten bastards in the fort at the top of the hill, right?” she guessed, careful not to give anything away. Sabo knelt again, nodding seriously. All traces of laughter and ease were gone from his expression, but his eyes were still kind when he gazed at their soft faces.

“We are, and it’s not safe so you all need to stay here until the coast is clear, got it?” he said with a tone that made it clear he would accept no nonsense or disobedience from them. The girl shook her head resolutely anyway, summoning up her courage even when Sabo quirked an eyebrow at her open sass.

“No way! You can’t just walk in through the front! Everyone who’s tried that ends up dead!” she argued, receiving plenty of support from the kids surrounding them. Sabo sighed, ruffling her hair fondly.

“We don’t have much of a choice,” he admitted, but was surprised when she adamantly shook her head again.

“You helped us out, so let us help you,” she said, gesturing to the hidden trap door leading into the basement. “We built a tunnel up there a long time ago, those jerks have the best sweets in town and never share. So we made sure they started contributing to the gang whether they realize it or not,” she grinned impishly. Sabo glanced over his shoulder to see the incredulous look on Koala’s face, laughing outright at the sight of it before turning back to the determined group of kids.

“Will you show it to us?” he asked them. They led the both of them through the trapdoor, Sabo retrieving the babe again while his young guardian clambered down the ladder after the rest of her brothers and sisters. They landed in a cozy little alcove tucked away under the orphanage. A single light hung from the ceiling, its glow too weak to illuminate the walls that surrounded them. It was the first time Sabo had descended into the dark, which would have frightened any kid had they not laughed and played in its depths and made it their home.

“Got a light?” he asked Koala, who was already lighting a lantern that had been stashed behind the ladder that had brought them there. The extra light brightened the room considerably, revealing multiple tunnels carved out of the walls and trailing off into the earth in all directions.

“Which one leads to the fort?” Koala asked the leader of the orphan gang. She gestured to one that headed in the wrong direction, but assured her that it would take them exactly where they wanted to go. The tunnel let out in the gardens right outside the kitchen, providing plenty of cover and direct access into the main building tucked away behind high stone walls. Koala’s blood was pumping with excitement, but her training kicked in before she could do anything reckless like her boss would have.

“I’ll go check it out and confirm it’s drop off location so we can plan accordingly,” she offered, seeing the bags under Sabo’s eyes darken in the dim light. He was ready to refuse, but was halted mid-breath when one of the smaller rugrats climbed up his back like he was a jungle gym. The brat wrapped his arms around Sabo’s neck and buried his face in his shoulder.

“Don’t leave yet, big bro!” he whined, quite enjoying the blond’s company. Sabo let out a small sigh, shifting the baby into one arm before petting the boy’s head. Before he could stop them, he was being assaulted on all sides by the little urchins. He made a mental note to check his pockets before he left, just to make sure he still had all of his belongings.

“Stay, just for a little longer,” the eldest said, tugging at the front of his vest, looking up at him with wide eyes. Koala approached him then, and Sabo was grateful for the help that she would no doubt lend him. What surprised him, however, was when she lifted the sleeping babe out of his arms and turned to the rest of the brats with a mischievous smile touching her lips.

“Y’know what? I think Sabo needs a little nap. Maybe you could try tiring him out?” she quipped, ignoring his look of betrayal and stepping back right as the kids pounced without hesitation, working flawlessly together to push him into the back corner where a nest of bedding and blankets had been gathered. They toppled him to the ground and as soon as he was sprawled out on the surprisingly comfortable mess of blankets, he was swarmed with children.

Some of them laid all their weight on his arms and legs to keep him from escaping and give the ones trying to undo the buttons on his vest enough time to work them loose without breaking them off altogether. It was a small victory for the Chief of Staff that his clothing was still usable after being manhandled by a horde of kids. After his pesky vest was out of the way, they wasted no time in rucking his shirt up and plastering his firm stomach with kisses. It tickled more than anything, and Sabo found himself laughing despite his office, his protests snuffed out.

Koala watched from afar with a fond smile on her face as Sabo let himself relax, knowing he was surrounded by allies and confident in his own abilities to respond at the drop of a hat and defend them and the brats if the situation called for it. The children might not have known that he was allowing them to carry on with their escapades, but they didn’t need to. The eldest snuck a kiss onto his cheek before retreating to Koala’s side to take her baby brother back.

The revolutionary smiled at the young girl and disappeared into the black of the tunnel with the lantern. She heard the sounds of Sabo’s laughter, lighter than it had been in a long while. The sweet sound of the children’s giggles mixed in with his until she was too far to hear them anymore.

When Koala returned, she was very happy with the new access point they had been gifted with, quite sure that they would have no trouble surprising the nobles and breaking open their beloved fort for good. The passage was too small for Sabo, but big enough for Koala and a team of smaller agents to get through and let their main force in through the front door.

Silence greeted Koala in the tunnel that had been so lively with the sound of laughter only minutes earlier. She emerged back into the basement with its one poor light and ambled around to the last place she had seen Sabo and the kids.

She couldn’t help the smile that snuck onto her face when she saw him conked out in the blanket nest, surrounded on all sides by brats. The leader had waited until he and her siblings were asleep before crawling in with the baby and snuggling into Sabo’s side. His lips were slightly parted, his features so much softer now that he was asleep without any worldly responsibilities sitting heavy on his young shoulders.

Koala let them be, ascending the old ladder to inform their soldiers of the change in plans. When it was time to act, she would wake Sabo if he hadn’t already roused himself by then. Then they would strike hard and fast. Hopefully by the time they left, the precious children snoozing beneath her feet would have better futures to look forward to.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Leave a comment or a kudos, I'd love to hear what you think!


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